Milieu movies are fine and something special – and if the top issue is about pimping and street-walkers‘patch, then always worth sneaking a peek on it. Because who can say…maybe sometimes there’s a more pretentious sample to find in this already sparsely populated genre. STREETWALKIN’ unfortunately doesn’t belong to it.

In the credits some Cops have been mentioned as advisors to convey authenticity. If this has been the intention of directress Joan Freeman (her first of two full length feature films), then either the most footages have got lost in the cutting room or the producer considered psychological depth as not suitable for the mass market. So the result has been a clichéd movie which not in the least stands out of the average of similar themed movies. It already starts, that leading actress Cookie (Melissa Leo giving her debut) arrives together with her brother at New York Central Station, calling her mother at home (the audience find out that she and her brother have been chased out of the house because Cookie has been molested by her step-father and her mother doesn’t believe her – and so little bro followed her…just the first of many subsequent questions) and then chatted up by a pimp. Not going into the further plot, but in the next scene she’s already a hard boiled alley cat who conscienceless endures any kind of smut (naturally this dark side of prostitution isn’t shown!). The cliché package is opened wide: Cookie does all out of love her pimp is just a two-whore-pimp who bludgeons the second girl to death because she wants to quit. Cookie, pretty smart she is then switches to the rival pimp Duke and let him eliminate the competitor. This doesn’t work as planned and so the curtain rises for the show down where many people lose their lives. In between we get the following wisdoms: Life of an alley cat is no big deal because in the further course of the movie we get to know that Johns are poor devils who either spurt in their pants to early because the sweet squeeze wears randy briefs or masochists let the giggling queen of hearts give them a whipping. And finally the hookers still have plenty of time to relax when they pursue their nightly poker rounds after work. Once in a while reality comes up when one of the sluts can hardly keeps up dazed and stoned as she is – but this gets lost in the shuffle of incredibleness. Only Dale Midkiff (PET CEMETARYE) as psychopathic pimp is convincing and is the only reason worth watching this quickie.

The Movie has been released as an Unrated and Unrated-Version within the USA. The R-Rated version has been exported to some other countries like Germany. Compared has been the German VHS (=R-Rated) with the US Pay-TV-Release, which is absolutely identical to the Unrated version featuring close to 1 minute more content.
Unrated = 83:25 Min. (NTSC)
R-Rated = 79:08 Min. (Pal)

Difference = 59 seconds within 5 cuts

57:58 Min.Duke cuts Finesse’s throat who then slumps down sidewards gurgling. Furthermore there are counter cuts on the frightened looking Creepy and on the disillusioning watching Duke.
( 19 sec. )

68:19 Min.At the night club the scene is missing where Duke puts Cookie on the table holding his revolver close to her throat pulling the trigger with the words "I love you, Baby!" but the hammer hits an empty gun.
( 18 sec. )

68:49 Min.The Russian roulette continues. In the R-Rated version Duke says: "Damned Baby, I loved you! ", but then it’s missing when he turns the clip ("Let's do it again!" ... "What's up? Do you love that game?" ) and pulls the trigger again (in the Off-screen).
( 15 sec. )

69:53 Min.Jason strangles Duke in an additional close-up view as well as in a counter cut.
( 5 sec. )

75:53 Min.There’s another long shot where Duke gets another hit and a counter cut on to Cookie.
( 2 sec. )